anddd it's already on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_numbers#RSA-260

What was the methodology,software, hardware, cpu cores, time taken?

"4397328654844826923795068102505872571721883526553349659561256924505973939597593482272505698004801207988043088656411102133523080581 divides RSA-260"

Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_Factoring_Challenge

Impressive. I wonder the methodology. Algorithmic improvements? More probably just an implementational optimisation. Last RSA record was due to special q sieving methods if I recall well, some 3k core hours. I hope there’s a theoretical improvement behind the result.

It's sort of fun to remember the genuine worry in the community around RSA and the (really, really shocking at the time!) progress in factorization leading up to GNFS techniques.

Like, it really looked like everything was going to fall apart. We all rushed to 1024 bit keys, and then to 2048 bit after what felt like a few months. And... maybe even that wouldn't be enough?

And actual history ended up being the boring version: it was absolutely enough, factorization is seemingly settled math at this point, no new techniques have been discovered.

At the end of the day RSA was just fine and no one really needed to bother with ECC and all of its confusing tutorials.

And the ~23 year old 1024 bit key holding my GnuPG box closed is still just fine, cryptographically. (Though the chances of getting hit with a keylogger or other side channel attack over that period are nontrivially high and I suppose I really should rotate it or something).

Can I decode my DVD collection now?